Altruistic PR boss gives firm Global Tolerance away to spend more time with his family

Simon Cohen, head of PR firm Global Tolerance, has announced he is to give the communications and marketing company he has built up over the past 11 years in order to stay at home and look after his children.

Specialising in social activism Cohen is practising what he preaches by opting to hand the keys to his £1m empire to an appropriate candidate rather than sell-out to another PR firm.

To that end Cohen has undertaken a two-month audition process to find two lucky applicants who will be put in the driving seat of a firm whose clients include the United Nations and the Dalai Lama.

That process saw 200 applicants from 30 countries whittled down to just Noa Gafni, an employee of the World Economic Forum and Rosie Warin, a PR director at Forster Communications. Between them the chosen duo will receive 95 per cent of the company’s shares, all of its assets and £10k each.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Cohen said: “When my wife fell pregnant, it was the most real thing in the world and I had to think what was most of value to me."

That process of re-appraisal saw Cohen conclude that giving his firm away was the only real way to preserve its values. He said: “What tends to happen is that the merged or acquired organisation's values get lost, or diminished.

“There didn’t seem to be a way of leaving the company that would keep its values.”

Cohen is to retain the remaining 5 per cent of the company’s shares and will work one day a week in the role of a communications consultant.